


Ringwald Haze

by Galanotgonnahaveit



Series: The one where there's a punk band and I get to talk about my city [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Chicago (City), F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hardcore punk, I can't just tag hardcore or it'll seem like porn, Infidelity, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Multi, Punk, Unrequited Love, everyone is fed up with life's shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22743610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galanotgonnahaveit/pseuds/Galanotgonnahaveit
Summary: Erzébet wants to confront her boyfriend about the failing relationship. Vash's abandonment angst turns into something else. Erika wants to prove that she's a woman. Natalya wants to go out and die young. Feliks wants to know where he stands with Tolys. Francis just wants to propose to his boyfriend Arthur.Arthur and the BTT are in a mediocre hardcore band and everyone's a bitch
Relationships: Austria/Hungary (Hetalia), Austria/Switzerland (Hetalia), Belarus/Liechtenstein (Hetalia), England/France (Hetalia), Hungary/Ukraine (Hetalia), Lithuania/Poland (Hetalia)
Series: The one where there's a punk band and I get to talk about my city [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635304
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. The Local Goat Farmer is a Homewrecking Bitch

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Cap n Jazz song Little League

After 5 years of being together. 5 fucking years. Erzébet and Roderich's relationship was crumbling like Rome. They had once loved eachother oh so passionately. They had tried to repair it time and time again, like a historic mansion, but soon the great depression hit and squatters took prices of whatever stability they had left with them to sell on the black market.  
The train stopped and Erzébet stepped out like a woman on a mission- no, she was a woman on a mission. She let the conventions of strangers fuel each step.  
"So now I'm the dumb one because I haven't read Bakunen-" "Your bitch? Fucker, she was always mine, from the womb to the tomb-""Hi, I'm Karl Marx, welcome to Denny's- Oh, well yeah I guess you're right. Hi, I'm Karl Marx, welcome to my communist soup kitchen "  
She pushed the turnstile forward, all the strength of 10+ years of swimming in one arm movement, faux leather boots hitting the ground with a stomp. Up the stairs (escalators were for pussies).  
As she walked her mind began to wander. She wasn't angry at Roderich. Roderich meant the world to her, she'd drain lake Michigan just to ensure his safety. No, she was disappointed in Roderich, they had something, but she supposed all empires were to fall eventually. Wasn't it better to relish in the fact that they had something in the first place? That her arms had once held his slight frame? That his fingers once brushed against keys that played songs for her? She was overjoyed in what once was. She'd really only be upset if Roderich had cheated, broken his code of loyalty. Roderich wouldn't do that, he was loyal, like a wolf to his pack, Roderich had stayed by her side through the worst.  
Her steps slowed as she approached his apartment. She buzzed rang the buzzer and was met with her boyfriend's hoarse accented voice, "Hallo?"  
"It's me, Erzébet."  
"One sec."  
Erzébet climbed the stairs of her soon to be ex's apartment.  
Roderich opened the door. He was wearing black jeans and a blue button up with he top few buttons unbuttoned. His hair was a mess, and his cheeks were flushed. "Erzébet! Wonderful to see you! May I offer you some coffee?"  
Erzébet smiled sadly, "I think we should break up."  
Roderich's face dropped, "Liz it's not what you think-"  
"Look, thank you for being so loyal for all these years but the spark is gone, Roddy, the spark is gone."  
Erzébet and Roderich turned their heads to the sound of footsteps. A young man, around their age with blonde chin length hair standing in Roderich's kitchen in green boxers, smoking a cigarette… a post coital cigarette…  
"You're out of milk."

Erzébet could scream.

"WHAT THE HOT FUCK RODDY!"

In fact she did scream.


	2. What Goes Around Don't  Around In This Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liz goes for a drink, things get a lil spicy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not posting this sooner, I lost the password to this account when I got a new phone. 
> 
> Title is from "Padlock Hadlock" by Kimya Dawson.  
> Kimya Dawson is a wonderful anti folk artist and a musical voice that has been active in the BLM movement.
> 
> Her song "At The Seams" was used by Patrisse Cullors-Brignac (one of the founders of BLM) in a preformance piece. Give it a listen when you're done here.

“I need a drink.” Erzébet mumbled.  
She walked to her favorite bar with the same swiftness she walked to Roderich’s houe with. Her boots hit the concrete with the same speed and intesnity, but all the passion was gone, replaced with a skittish almost terrified trot, a result of her still processing the previous scene.  
Erzébet entered the Music Venue and Bar, sat at the bar, put her head in her arms and screamed.  
“LIIIIIIIZZZ!” a short man wearing a pink miniskirt and a t shirt came in and shook Liz.  
Erzébet looked up, “Feliks?”  
“You know it.”  
Feliks and took Liz’s arm and pulled her up to face him, they then kissed eachother on the cheek twice.  
“What are you here for?” asked Feliks.  
“Just make me a drink.” Erzébet said.  
Feliks took a bottle of vodka and began to pour it in a glass, while Erzébet laid her head down in her arms.  
“So can you explain to me what happened?” she asked the two men who had previously engaged in coitus.  
Feliks set a vodka cran on the bar infront of Erzébet and took a seat next to his bff.  
A soft blush appeared on Vash’s face, dusting his cheeks and nose, a “I-I. Well, er, there-- the store.. i..”  
Roderich cleared his throat, “Its simple, we’ve known eachother for quite awhile, stopped talking for a bit and we just happened to meet at Jewel.”  
Erzébet took a long sip of her drink, leaving a smudge of lip tint on the rim of the glass, “No shit you’ve known eachother for a long time. Vash would stick by you after I beat your ass as kids, which, by the way, he might have to do again.”  
Erzébet got up, but Feliks, bless his soul, grabbed her by the blouse and pulled her back down.  
“Not now, Liz.” Feliks said, rubbing a circle on her back.  
Vash seemed to shrink down in his seat, like a violet after the setting sun. Roderich took notice and grabbed his hand, running his long pianist fingers over rough knuckles.  
Erzébet scoffed, “So what? Memories of you running through feilds of dandelions and playing tag on elementary school playgrounds got the motor going?”  
Vash coughed, as to hide his nervousness, to once again paint himself as a gruff masculine man, who shot trucks, ate guns and drove meat. Vash had not wanted to be painted as something small and fragile, who had to be coddled in the face of confrontation.  
Roderich knew that, after years and years and a k-8 education of being intertwined like briars on a wall, you get to know someone. There were certain parts of Vash that had not changed, the macho postering, his love of firearms, his resourcefulness, his hair, his love of animals the very core of his soul that held it all together. Of course, certain things had grown, moved and changed, the briars blossomed flowers and a few vines had been lost to blight. The childlike light in Vash’s eyes had grown cold, the innocent glow of the sky at dusk had been replaced by something more akin to the depth of a lake on a clear day. His hands had grown rough by hadneling goats on the weekdays and guns on the weekends, the skin where Roderich traced hearts served to protect the lower layers after wear and tear, much like Roderich’s own. He had grown up, both in height (though he was still quite small) and in disposition. Though he was still angry, the fiery passion had been replaced by a thundery shell, built to protect. He had grown more frugal over the years, he had a sister to care for now, this frugality had facilitated their reunion, the ghost of fingers over discount cheese.  
Roderich wanted to protect this Vash, and the Vash of his childhood. It wasn’t that he was fragile, rather that he was valuable. People still held diamonds close to their person, despite their status as one of the strongest materials in the world. Yes, diamonds were valuable, not fragile, not rare, valuable. A value manufactured from over 80 years of propaganda, not determined by labor or material, but by the mind. In that way Vash was valuable to him, not because he could do anything in particular or was made of anything special, but simply because he liked him, although he needed no propaganda to tell him that.  
“No.” Roderich growled.  
“Then what is it? Why would you want to fuck someone you after a grocery store trip?”  
“We didn’t fuck right after the grocery store trip! We had coffee and a few weeks later we fucked!”  
Erzébet let out this high pitch scream-whine-grown combination, like a Grendel’s mother after finding her dead son’s body, like a struggling 20 something in a poor southern town after finding out her house had been forclosed, a sound not only of anguish and betrayal but also of frustration, like the build up of a relationship that spanned the entirety of highschool and some had crashed down like a meteor on the dinosaurs of their humble and sacchrine existence.  
“I don’t know what to tell you Roddy…” she sighed. “How could you think this was ok? The relationship wasn’t open. Not to either of us.”  
Vash shifted on his barstool, looking increasingly uncomfortable. He took his hand out from Roderich’s grasp and pushed him away. “I think I’m going to leave.”  
Roderich’s gaze followed him out of the bar, though his legs stayed glued to the floor, tethered to the reality of this conversation with Erzébet Hedervary  
Roderich swallowed the lump that had coveted a space in the back of his throat, “Why did you want to talk to me in the first place?”  
He saw the color drain from Erzébet ’s face, her eyes downcast in a guilty staring contest with the floor.  
“To break up…” she whispered.  
Both of them stood in the room, merely existing, sharing space. Roderich closed his eyes and let the general ambience of the room surround him, the punk rock that Feliks usually played on the speakers when he was working (save for shows and drag nights) was absent, leaving just the vague fuzz that your brain edits in to distract yourself from silence. No one dared to even breathe, fearing that they would break the tension holding everyone’s emotional well being together, unleashing a flood of unwanted words and phrases, or worse yet, more silence.  
A mutual understanding washed over the couple without words. Their relationship was over. The empire had fallen. For a while, it had lived like a patient on life support, in a sleep, posibly listening to stories from family members and friends in hope of one day waking up and the plug was finally pulled, sening it into an eternal rest. Their heart rates had slowed, leaving the high intensity of confrontation in the rearview mirror.  
Feliks took a sip of Erzébet ’s vodka cran.  
“So its over then.” Erzébet said.  
Roderich stopped holding his breath, “I guess so.” The man dug around in his pocket, pulling out his glasses case, he removed a blue rag and plucked his glasses off his nose. Gingerly, with hands now steady after shaking like Lisbon in 1755, he cleaned his glasses. With the fog gone, he could now see Liz, her shape clearly visible behind thick glass, something he once touched and maybe, with what he could hope for, truly felt. She felt so much farther away, yet so much more defined in this one moment after all the other moments that he had had with her, cherished with her, existed with her.  
Liz laughed, the tension leaving the room with the laughter that came from her mouth. Her smile, one he had seen more times than he had seen his own, looked weightless now, like when they had first begun their relationship in 9th grade.  
“See you around.,” he said.  
“See ya,” she replied.  
Roderich walked out of the bar, head held high, lips resting in a flat line. In the time it took for he and Liz to break up, it had started to rain. It was then he realized he had no umbrella, letting the heavy drops of rain land on his hair, Roderich took a breath and made a decision. He began a sprint back to his house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends. Considering the fanbase for this fic's fandom is pretty young, I realize many of you including myself may not have the means to make our own donations to issues we care about. One very relevant cause at the moment is Black Lives Matter. Here is the link to Zoe Amira's video. Watch it as many times as you want and the adds revenue will go to BLM related funds. Make sure to watch some videos in between so your views dont count as spam and turn off add block.
> 
> https://youtu.be/bCgLa25fDHM
> 
> You may need to copy and paste this link.


	3. What the hell does pog mean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liz goes home and Feliks inspires something deep within her soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is bad and I'm pretty sure no one reads it but you know what I need to feel something again so I wrote this.

Liz stood in the empty venue in silence, “... what just happened?”  
Feliks opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, then opened it again, “Dude that was kinda fucked up.”  
Erzébet turned to him and cokced her head to the side.   
“I mean, he cheated on you, and then just kinda walked out of here like the protagonist of some artsy romance movie with some indie rock band making up most of the soundtrack. Like, was I the only one who saw that? With my own two eyes? Like that really happened, right?” Feliks asked   
A sudden look of conviction crossed Erzébet’s face, “Oh my god you’re right.”   
Erzébet began walking towards the door, each furious stomp filled with absolute fury, “I am going to key that bitch’s car.”  
“Wait how’re you getting home?” Feliks asked, causing her to turn around.  
“Well I got here on the CTA so the same way I guess.”  
“No- Liz no! You are NOT in a state to go home by yourself. I’m driving.”   
“I can get home just fine.”  
“No! I’m not having you sit in that piss filled coffin on tracks after you just got dumped!”  
Feliks began walking (with a purpose) to the door and Erzébet reluctantly began to follow.  
“Wait!” a voice came in from the doorway to the backroom. “You can’t just leave!”  
Feliks turned around to face the concerned figure, and waved his hand in dismissal, “Oh please, Tolys, it’s not even like, really my shift anyway, I only technically work nights today. I just wanted to help out with getting everything ready for the show. Just tell the manager it’s an emergency. Tell him my other babcia died.”

…

They didn’t speak to each other the entire ride, the only sound was the city streets and the breakup playlist Erzébet was allowed to play through the AUX chord. When they got to the apartment, the two let the last line to “This Is Me Getting Over You In Two Chords Or Less” by the Coffee Project stop and lead into a spotify ad. Erzébet quickly closed the app, paused for a bit and collapsed on Felik’s dashboard, letting out a high pitched whine.   
“Liz…” Feliks said placing a gentle hand on Erzébet’s shoulder. “We’re at your house.”   
“What am I gonna do?” Erzébet groaned.   
Feliks sighed, “Move on? Enjoy your life? Be happier at your job? Go to more shows? Take your friends out thrifting? Dominate at the gym? You just dropped a bunch of dead weight- dead music boy weight too, those guys are never good.”   
“All his friends are my friends.”  
“Yeah but they’re gonna stay your friends, plus, you have friends that like, aren’t his.”   
“I’m just so tired.” Erzébet rolled down her window and turned to the sky, “FUCK YOU RODERICK!”  
Feliks stifled a giggle and then straightened his face, “Maybe you just need to get out and meet new people.”  
Erzébet gave a small grin, “Yeah, I’d like that.”   
“I know this anarchist theory reading group that’s meeting on Saturday. I bet they’d like to have you. They also do DnD on Wednesday nights. I know you say that you, like, wish you had more time to read.”  
“I think I’ll go.”  
Erzébet bet unbuckled her seatbelt, opened the door, stepped out of the car and kissed Feliks on the cheek, “Bye bitch, love you, I owe you one.”  
“Wait!” Feliks said.  
Erzébet turned to face him.  
“Are you coming to Gilbert’s band’s show tonight? The one I was helping clean up for?”  
Erzébet’s mouth straightened out until her lips were a line straighter than a Pro Bass fishing shop. “Feliks- you know I love Gil.”  
“Yes. Most of us do- kind of- not really.”   
“And you know that I want to support his dreams as long as they aren’t hurting anyone?”   
“Yes, you unlike many people do not take active joy in his crashing and burning, only the small winces of pain he gives you when you beat him in literally everything.”   
“But here’s the thing.”  
“Oh do tell.”  
“They suck.”  
“Yes I am aware.”  
“And I’d rather not subject myself to that.”   
“Liz. Remember when we saw Ivan’s sisters’ short lived folk punk project at that one house?”  
“Yes. They were good.”   
“Like, debatable.”  
“They had lovely voices.”  
“Agreed, agreed, fair fair. But neither of them could play guitar.”  
“I think that might be the point?”  
“Yes maybe.”  
“I think you’re just being a bitch.”  
Yes in all fairness I have been known to be a huge bitch. But like, my point is, if you’re like willing to show up for two almost strangers, can’t you show up for someone you’ve known since elementary school?”  
Erzébet chewed the inside of her cheek.   
“I’ll think about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I'm aware of the irony in mentioning an anarchist theory group within Hetalia fanficiton, but we all die and I'm a hot bitch so i can do what i want.


End file.
